As the debate goes on over allowing Huawei to use its technology in this country- people wondering if the Chinese company can be trusted with our data, would we be giving them a backdoor to share all our data with the Government of China. Strange that we would be so concerned that the Chinese government might mine our data, yet we blissfully donate our data to Facebook, Google et al. without the merest thought. Perhaps there is a sort of cyber racism going on here. We will allow wasps to feast on our data exhaust and grow fat and rich but good Episcopal God no- we won’t allow the Chinese to gain from our detritus. Are they not worthy to exploit people like everyone else? Perhaps our manifest destiny has run amok and on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs the needs of Americans are above those from other nations.

I believe it was Cheap Trick that had the song with the lyric, “Surrender, but don’t give yourself away” but it seems like that is exactly what is happening as Facebook is going forward in its plans to create its own cryptocurrency for use across its platform and other partner platforms. While we are invited to surrender to a world of convenience and security we also seem to be on the brink of giving too much away. With the creation of a stand-alone currency seems to be running the risk of starting a stand-alone economy. With the global online economy now running almost seven trillion dollars imagine the power that a corporation could wield in world politics. With a current value of almost 2.3 billion, they could become powerful enough to begin to dictate financial policy in the same way Walmart dictates when it will receive certain merchandise to its loading dock. While we have seen the effective ways that savings and loans can regulate themselves into a $160 Billion dollar bailout, and later banks almost bankrupted the economy only to get a $700 billion bailout, what could possibly go wrong with a single industry dominating online currency and online transactions? Let us embrace our inner Alfred E Neuman- why worry? A rising economy lifts all boats even at the cost of flooding the low lying ports. So sit back, relax and enjoy the ever warming bathwater.

It was with a certain pleasure I read John Chen’s excellent article, “The Simple Solution To The Technology Trust Crisis” and its suggestions as to how to resolve the issue that people don’t trust the technology that they seem to rely on every day. He suggests that we must own our data and be allowed to be responsible for the monetization or non-monetization of our data, our choices and by extension ourselves, something we have been saying here. It got me thinking of having drinks with a lovely girl from South Africa while in college. She was African and delighted in telling me how in Apartheid South Africa, I would be thought of as less than white, with my olive skin and dark curly hair, that I would fall somewhere on the scale of quadroon, or octoroon. The dictionary reminds that quadroon refers to one who In the 19th century was a person who was one-quarter black and three-quarters white. In other words, a quadroon had one grandparent of African descent. The dictionary goes on to declare that the term is deeply offensive and obsolete.
While that is a charming thought, perhaps the future will see a return of that type of classification for our relation to our digital assets, perhaps we will allow the big tech companies to own our digital personality- digital slaves. Perhaps we will find this term useful to declare how much of ourselves belongs to us and how much is owned by Google, Facebook or Amazon. Author Kashmir Hill, tried to remove herself from the snarl of big tech only to find that she was unable to live without its convenience. Perhaps we are already fast asleep, and the oozy weeds about us twist as we give the only power have, the power to make choices for ourselves, away. Maybe, for us to even think of ourselves as complete owners of our data, our choices and by extension ourselves is only make-believe.

There are trends that are interesting and then there are trends that are disturbing. The latter seemed true when we saw that Netflix now seems to dominate 15 percent of the internet-while YouTube follows with another 11 percent and Amazon coming in with 3 percent. It seems that we are in a race for distraction and video content being the latest thing that no one can be without. Disney buys Fox not for the distribution but for the content as our voracious eyes must constantly be fed with new images. With Ford Motor stock being degraded to just above junk bond status and Sears filing for bankruptcy it seems that we are no longer a nation that makes or buys things but only one that prefers to watch others do things. While Napoleon had once called Britan a nation of shopkeepers, we have become voyeurs who only find value in what Noel Coward called “a talent to amuse” Hi ho, if that were all…

The title comes from a song by Noel Coward, the lyrics and a link to a performance are below.

I believe in doing what I can
In crying when I must
In laughing when I choose
Hey ho, if love were all

I should be lonely.
I believe the more you love a man,
The more you give your trust,
The more you’re bound to lose.

Although when shadows fall
I think if only
Somebody splendid really needed me
Someone affectionate and dear

Cares would be ended if I knew that he
Wanted to have me near.
But I believe that since my life began
The most I’ve had is just a talent to amuse.
Hey ho, if love were all.

While our Janus’ face is often turned to the future, it took a brief look back to an old Burger King ad when we heard the news of a study that showed that Robots could create twice as many jobs as they destroy. It seems a bit optimistic of the World Economic Forum which says while machines and computer algorithms could displace 75 million people it could create 133 million jobs. Of course, we realize that new technology always creates in its wake social unrest and disruption. The printing press as a prelude to the Reformation, newspapers to the rise of unions, television ushering in the era of civil rights and protests that launched the end of the Vietnam war and started woman’s rights movement. While all of these innovations both technological and social have made people’s lives better, there are always those who are caught beneath the wheel of progress. And while we have no doubt that the rising tide of progress will raise many boats, what happens to those whose skills don’t fit exactly in the last lifeboat. Perhaps, social media has brought reality into our lives with an immediacy that television couldn’t match that perhaps is calling us to forge a new more compassionate version of democracy. One in which the winners don’t always have it their way, as Burger King commercials used to say, a new world in which the high tide raises all boats, not just the ones of the rich or famous.

Oli Frost is my hero. He decided that he had gotten tired of giving his personal data away for companies to profit from so he decided to download his own data and putting it up for auction on eBay to the highest bidder. The highest bidder will get a flash drive of his personal data and the profit from the sale will be donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It seems that while people have no issue with giving our data away for profit, and we are encouraged to give blood, though there is an issue with selling our selves (prostitution) or even our body parts while they are alive. Case in point, search eBay for live kidney and there are no results but search for shrunken head (no- really. Try it) and you are met with more than 20 results. Interesting that it would be acceptable that we should give away the moments that make up our lives, even our life’s blood in many cases for the profit of others but our selling ourselves in whole or part would be taboo.

It really made me laugh out loud. I mean, how often is it that the grey lady, New York Times On-Line projects hilarity into this ultra-serious time. It seems that coder Eric Bailey decided to create an add-on to Google’s Chrome browser to counteract the surge in news stories that blame so-called millennials for the world’s problems. The Millennials to Snake People add-on term “millennials” to “snake people” in news articles and on websites. No accessing the launch codes, just something that he thought would be funny. Somehow this was allowed to slip into an article that appeared in the online edition but was corrected for the print version.
While the online article only referred to the “Great Recession” as “the time of shedding and cold rocks”, the fact that someone seems to be using the internet and social media to inject a bit of mirth into the discussion is a move that we wholeheartedly endorse. This seems to continue in the proud tradition of jokers and fools have been Ernie Kovacs, Salvador Dali, the Pie Man even St Francis. It seems that the jokers and fools will be the ones to open our eyes to a vaster possibility of engagement, to make us examine this new presence in our lives, to lose our jaded blinders and to remember that we are surrounded by wonder and that each moment can be a moment to be surprised by joy. Or at least snake people!